September 15, 2025 • 30 mins
Shideh Lennon is a dedicated psychologist with over two decades of experience who specializes in training fellow professionals in Somatic Experiencing. Her mission is to empower practitioners to work effectively with clients who have experienced complex trauma.
Shideh was born and raised in Iran. At the age of 13, she and her family, spanning three generations of women and girls, left Iran after the revolution, and settled in the UK. Later, they immigrated to the US, where Shideh completed her education.This significant chapter in Shideh’s life has instilled in her a profound understanding and compassion for those who yearn to belong but struggle due to the weight of trauma.
In This Episode
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Shideh was born and raised in Iran. At the age of 13, she and her family, spanning three generations of women and girls, left Iran after the revolution, and settled in the UK. Later, they immigrated to the US, where Shideh completed her education.This significant chapter in Shideh’s life has instilled in her a profound understanding and compassion for those who yearn to belong but struggle due to the weight of trauma.
In This Episode
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-trauma-therapist--5739761/support.
You can learn more about what I do here:
The Trauma Therapist Newsletter: celebrates the people and voices in the mental health profession. And it's free! Check it out here: https://bit.ly/4jGBeSa
———
If you’d like to support The Trauma Therapist Podcast and the work I do you can do that here with a monthly donation of $5, $7, or $10: Donate to The Trauma Therapist Podcast.
Click here to join my email list and receive podcast updates and other news.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Trauma THEAPIS podcast. My name is Gamcpherson.
I interview incredible people who dedicated their lives to helping
those who have been impacted by trauma. Here we go,
So five, four, three, two and one are folks. Welcome
back to the podcast. Very excited to have as my
guest today, Doctor Shauday Lenin Shauday welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Thank you so much. It's so good to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Awesome So. Doctor Shaday is a dedicated psychologist with over
two decades of experience who specializes in training fellow professionals
and somatic experiencing. Her mission is to empower practitioners to
work effectively with those who've experienced complex trauma. She was
born and raised in Iran. At the age of thirteen,
she and her family, spanning three generations of women and girls,
(00:46):
left Iran after the revolution and settled in the UK. Later,
they immigrated to the US, where Shoulday completed her education.
This significant chapter in her life is instilled in her
profound understanding and passion for those who yearned to belong
but struggle due to the weight of trauma. Should they welcome? So,
(01:09):
before we get going here, share with the listeners where
you're from originally we heard that obviously, but where you
are currently?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I am currently in Maryland.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
After having lived in New York for close to forty years. Wow,
back to Maryland where I actually landed from England.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
When we first moved here.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, I was in New York for thirty six years. Close.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, okay, wow, so very intense little snippet of your bio.
But give us more and share with us how this.
I mean, we can imagine how things unfolded for you,
but tell us how did this interest begin for you?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I have an early memory when I was five years old.
My parents divorced at that time and when and at
that time, they weren't talking to each other. So whenever
my father and I lived with my mother would come
to pick us up, they wouldn't talk. They would just
say hello, hello, and my dad would take me and
(02:17):
my sister out for our time.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
And so one day my dad came in.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
And I remember looking up at both of them and saying,
why don't you two sit down and talk.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
To each other?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
How old we do? How old were you five?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I was five, And so a psychologist was born, and.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Then you know, things evolved.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I obviously I lived there, and then at thirteen, with the.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Revolution, we.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
My grandmother, mother, my sister, and I basically migrated to
the UK. Thankfully my mother had connections there, she had work,
and so, you know, things were already brewing about what
it is to be a person in the world from
(03:16):
my early childhood, what it is to belong, what it
is to feel not belonging. And at thirteen everything turned
on its head where we moved to a culture that
was so deeply different than my own, and even though
I was pretty westernized, it was a shock shock to
(03:37):
my thirteen year old, hormonally imbalanced, you know system, and
so I went in, you know, I really turned in.
Had already been very internal kid, and so I turned
in even more and basically just became a really good student,
and everything else got truncated. Social life, dating life, there
(03:57):
was no room for any of that. So he became
very introspective and very sort of Then when we moved
to this country, as all Iranians who have some privilege,
you either become an engineer, a medical doctor, or a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
So like, I'm going to go to medical school.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
So in college I was a microbiology student, but something
in me. Knew that I needed some help, and so
at eighteen I went to.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Therapy on my own.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
My first therapist, Doug Favero, I want to name him.
At eighteen, I went to him and he really helped
to save me. And he gave me a book by
Ervin Yaalam, Existential Psychotherapy. And I was twenty and it
was a tome and I couldn't put that book down
(04:54):
because it spoke to me on a deep level. It's like, oh,
that's me. What is it to be a human being?
What is it to be in pain? What is it
to not know myself? And so I stayed a medical
I stayed a microbiology major, but switched all my classes
to psychology when I was twenty one and applied to
(05:16):
graduate school and went to Adelphi in New York to
become a psychologist, got my PhD. But still I was
a seeker, right, Something wasn't hitting home and it was
good therapist all of this. So then I found zen
Buddhist practice. I don't know if it says that in
my bio or not. So I went to a monastery.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Okay, wait, how hung right here? This is getting so good?
I mean, you had me at that story when you
were like, Okay, why don't you guys sit down and
talk to each other? That was That's an amazing story.
It is, I mean, what an incredible memory. At eighteen,
(06:06):
you said you went to see Dan Favarro, Dougg Doug Favro.
What was going on for you such that you reached out.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I went to a college counselor at the time who
asked me, do you think your mother loved you? And
I remember that moment. I remember exactly where I was sitting,
what the walls looked like. I was eighteen, and I
(06:39):
couldn't answer that question, and I literally stopped in my tracks.
But I didn't know why. I didn't know why I
had been so moved. And then she referred me to
dog because it was only six sessions with.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Her or something.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
That question really made me curious. But more than it,
it created turbulence in my body. And I didn't know
all that my cat's coming in now. I didn't know.
All I knew was that I needed to find the
answer to that question.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
That's a pretty intense question. I know, that's a pretty
heavy question. Yes, So were you were you when you
went to uh that initial college counselor where you what
was distressing for you? Were you? It was just to
(07:42):
know something was going on for you.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Something was going on that I still you know, I
can put words to it now.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Then I think I was lost and dissociated, and you know,
if somebody looked at me, I would start crying. So
everything was just below the surface, but no words. I
think I hated myself. I mean when I look back,
(08:12):
I really had no sense of myself as a person
who was entitled to be alive, who had a right
to herself, who had a sense of agency. And these
are again my words now, But back then I was dissociated.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
But something in.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Me knew that this is the beauty of trauma is
that to every trauma there is a counter there is
a resilient core, and that was operating in me without
knowing it.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Wow, it's sort of And that's.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
What I love about teaching and working with clients is
no matter the depth of trauma, and there was a
lot for me, there is what we call counter vortex
from an somatic experiencing perspective, is that point of light,
that moment of resilience. And it happened to be that
moment of I don't know how to answer this question.
(09:14):
Did your mother love you? I didn't know the answer.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
That's odd.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So you have that experience with Doug at some point,
at a later point, you switch all of your classes
your focus to psychology. Let's jump there. You're in that program.
You're studying what is resonating with you? How is that?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
I love?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
For all you know, being a good learning is like
was my hunger and one really needing to place myself
somewhere psychologically, finding myself some where in the words of
Freud at the time, or in the words of Wynnicott,
I studied psychoanalytic psychology, in the words of the relational people,
(10:10):
about how trauma often has to do with a breach
in relationship with a with a break in relation to
ourself and to others.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And so I could I could find that, and that.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Was I was on fire with that. It's like, oh,
this is really exciting. And I got into I was
with another therapist at the time who was you know,
I still see once in a while, who was tremendously
helpful in helping me through that through the graduate program, repair.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
The relational wounds in me.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
So so between reading about it and doing my personal work.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
It was a really rich time and yet so that's
what was exciting.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
I could go on about what you know, the yet
all the yets in that, but so I loved it.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I was gobbling it up.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
I was reading, I was writing, I was getting seeing clients.
By then, I was learning, and it was just you know, food.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
And where were you at this living at this time?
Is this in New York?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
This is New York, This is Long Island and New York.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
And I went straight from college, so I started grad
school at twenty two.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
It's very young, yeah, and just you know, really excited about.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Being a therapist and about telling people to sit down
and talk to each other, right, and to talk to me,
and to be able to express rather than.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Suppress.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
How when you started doing that and having experience of
working with clients or patients, whatever terminology you want to use,
what was that like for you, and especially what was
it like for you to engage with someone's traumatic experiences.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
It was horrible.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
I mean I was you know, I was young, so
my brain was bigger than my capacity at the time,
you know, my intellect was bigger. So it took some
time to really you know, season myself in that. But
it was also exciting because I had tools that I
could offer people that had less access to these tools
(12:44):
than even myself, right, And it was really exciting to
put a person in a framework, Oh, this is their suffering,
and at the time it was well, they're depressed, or
they're you know, going into rages.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Or whatever it was.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
You know, so it actually made sense of what to
me in my childhood had felt like chaos. I was
able to put in order for my clients and therefore.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
For myself, right.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
So so in that sense it was really exciting. I
had a long way to go to embody that for
myself as a human, as a clinician, as a trauma therapist,
but so that was really exciting. It was like, oh,
I get to put this person in a frame that
(13:35):
makes sense for them and from chaos to sense, that
to me was sanity.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
You can name things, you can express.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Things, right. You talked about at an earlier time being
very shy. You know, someone looked at you you should cry.
Contrast that with your presence when you began working with clients.
To what degree were you able to engage with them
(14:09):
on a kind of a human level. Were you able
to do.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
That and not completely? I think I always had.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
A soft, gentle approach to people that really helped them
feel seen and that was always there. So that was
my superpower and I did that. In terms of being
embodied and fully engaged, I wasn't able. It took somebody
experiencing and spiritual practice actually for me to fully come
(14:42):
into my body as a whole organism that I can
then use as.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
A tool in helping heal people.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
So back then it was my empathy, my intellectual understanding,
my warmth, and sort of the gentleness that a lot
of people we're missing in their life, just somebody who
brings that gentle presence.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
They were missing that. So that was the bone marrow.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
That I had, and I built on that over time,
but mostly through my own personal work, not so much
about reading theory and all this.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Right, talk a little bit about your Zen practice in
how why Zen and how that informed and inspire the
work you do.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Yeah, so you know it really shaped me. I lived
in a monastery for ten years.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Wow, in my thirties.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Where was this?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
It was at Zen Mountain Monastery in Mount trent Burg,
New York. And I went in there I think when
I look back, I went in there because I didn't
want to be in this world. It was just too
painful to be in this world at the age of
thirty four, and so I went in there to meditate
(16:02):
and to see what it what it's like to live
in community, which turned out to have its challenges.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
The way that it shaped me, however, was being able
to sit with.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
The intolerable, whether it was intolerable terror, it for me
it was anxiety and panic, the intolerable of being in
my body and to pause with it m hm, you know,
(16:40):
really was uh mm. It shaped me in terms of
and in terms of how it can be with people
with that solid presence.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
It had its drawbacks.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
There are challenges when there's trauma and you go meditate,
your body can go into a freeze, and mind certainly
did that so after so, but that sense of that
there's a fierceness to zen practice where you sit.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
And you don't move and you you are with it
right and.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Despite its drawbacks for a traumatized nervous system, it gave
me the fierceness to face my own my own pain.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
To do that from my outside perspective feels like a
very courageous move. I mean, you don't describe yourself as
someone who's like bring it on person, and yet the
Zen was really almost forcing you to do that.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
It almost felt like subconsciously you wanted that, you.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Needed that, yes, or or I needed to I needed
that because there is a part of me that's like
bring it, come on, all right, but it was so
suppressed and so it kind of came out through my
Zen practice.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, oh, panic, come on, come get me.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
And I remember one moment when I was sitting there
terrified of a panic attack in my meditation, and I said, all.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Right, we're gonna do this, We're gonna do this. Yeah,
well ten years, ten years that was there, Jesus I did.
I did a week was it a weekend at the
Zen Center in San Francisco many years ago, and I
(18:45):
was like, okay, all right, so let's talk about First
of all, let me let me reintroduce you speaking with
should they doctor? Should they Lenin? What was your introduction
to somatic experiencing.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah, Actually, at the monastery where I lived, there was
a number of therapists who would practice there, and a
couple of them had been taking the training and when
I left the monastery when I realized that I am
better in the world. I am better in the world
I need to be. You know, a couple of.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
My friends were going to take the training and they said,
come on, let's take it. Let's take it.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
I lived in New York at the time. I said,
all right, I didn't want to be left out. Basically,
I had FOMO. So the three of us took the
sc training together what about twelve thirteen years ago now
and and it was a difficult training because that's where
(19:51):
I came face to face with what the freeze and
constriction my body had been locked in.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
So the first two years years of the training were
really difficult. And I the reason I continued were we're twofold.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
One is that my friends were there, but the other
one was there's something here for me to learn that
talk therapy hasn't taught me.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
And so I continued.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
And I and I in my advanced year, I did
a demo did they do these live demos with a
teacher Rajah who Raja seldom, who's a giant of se
And and that was transformative. That made me an se practitioner.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
And what what about that? What about that?
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Experience he worked with fear. So he had me, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
We're feeling fear was a live demo.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
It was a live demo front well, you know, eighty people,
my my student, my classmates, and he said, look at
he said, look at a supportive person in the crowd,
just to ground yourself. And my good friend was there
and I looked at her, and guess what happened. I
burst into tears because the notion of actually looking for support.
(21:14):
One of the things on trauma that gets severed is
our ability to reach for support because there was none
when the trauma happened, or the very people whose job
it was to protect us were the very people who
hurt us, so the support was damager. And then so
(21:34):
we went there and then fear started to rise up
in my chest.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
It was a lot of shaking in my chest.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
He said, put your arms out, and I put my
arms out and my hands began to shake and my
job began to shake, and I'm like, okay, he said,
just let that happen, and he looked at me. He said,
that's fear.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
And it's like the penny dropped. It's like, oh, there's fear. Oh,
that's what fear. Is and guess what I can be
with it?
Speaker 3 (22:12):
So my whole relationship with that terror really, which was
what it was shifted to, there's terror and there's me.
There's me in my spine. He worked with my legs
a lot, and it was like, oh, this is powerful.
You know when I can when I could feel something
(22:34):
intolerable in my body and feel its reverberations and not
fight it, but also have my spine and my legs
with me, you know. And that's what a se we
call the healing vortex, which is how do you be
with something that feels intolerable but keep your seat, be
(22:57):
in your spine, be in your legs, and be with
that experience. Because the world isn't a place where we
where we're not activated. We're going to be activated. There's
going to be fear. So how do we So anyway I.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Could go on, Wow, what a what a great uh
experience and just love the way you articulate your experiences.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
So how talk to us about how things unfolded for
you such that you became a trainer. You got into it,
I got into it.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
I'm like, okay, I said to Raja, I said, Rajia,
You're never going to be rid of me, because I'm
going to follow and learn from you everywhere you go.
He's like, okay. So I began to study with him,
I assisted him. I became an assistant in the sc trainings. Wow,
(23:50):
an assistant you know, teacher, and I did that for
a few years and one of my one of the teachers.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
There, came to me and said, what do you want.
I don't know why she asked that. It came out
of the seemingly out and I told her I want
to teach, and she really it was.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
A beautiful example of a woman lifting up another woman,
which is also very repetitive for me. M So she
really helped me to become faculty and she mentored me,
and I'm so grateful for her because teaching is where
(24:35):
I actually feel most myself or the best version of myself,
right and and so you know, and you know, se
is about becoming the fullest version of who we are
in the body, in an embodied way, and you know,
(24:57):
and I feel like that's sort of the culmination of
the work that I've done, is being able to offer
that to people with as much of me as possible.
I don't know if that makes sense, but So there's
a lot of me and the teachings of SS, a
lot of stories, a lot of sharing what's happening in
(25:19):
my own body with my students to normalize.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
There's a lot of.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Shame and trauma mm hmm, you know, and so we
de shame it by talking about, oh, this happened to
me too, and here's how my body reacted. And I
love that too, And then I see my students slide up.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Me too. That's an incredible sharing there, talking about the shame,
naming the shame first of all, and then being able
to share that with others. How did you get to
that point where you're able to do that.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
A lot of fear.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
I used to stand at my Gooddest altar before every lesson,
before every module and basically invoked my spine and my courage.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
And then at one point I think, I so so
a lot of sc works. So really feeling my.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Feet, I mean, it's simple in some ways when I'm teaching,
feel your feet, feel that they're shaking in my chest and.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
The ground at the same time.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
And I began to do that, and I began to
share that with my class. So you know, I'm pretty nervous, right,
now let me tell you what's happening for me. My
chest is shaky, my throat is a little tight. Oh,
let me check. Oh, I feel my button the chair though,
and I can wiggle my toes.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
And this is what we learn in SE. So I
began to in some way.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Share my experience and that made it more tolerable.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
It's like, oh, I'm.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Vulnerable too, and I find vulnerability is the best form
of protection.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Wow. Yeah, amazing, amazing. I love it. I love talking
to you. So as you kind of wind.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Down editing some of this, I could go on, Oh no, no.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
No, not editing anything. As we kind of wind down
here she day, So what do you do now? Talk
to us about your practice now, your teachings now?
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Yeah, yeah, So I still see private clients. Okay, I've
cut back quite a bit. I teach everywhere. I teach
in the US, Canada, Europe, I teach see. I do
consultations with students and SE practitioners, and so that's the
(28:06):
bulk of what my work life is, okay now, and
I'm moving more towards consultations. I'm you know, I'm doing workshops.
I recently did a workshop on the fund response or
the people pleasing response, and so I'm going to do
that in the US in a few months. So more
(28:27):
offering myself to groups to teach is sort of where
I feel like I want to go. I'm going, okay,
cutting back on clinical practice a little bit, but not completely.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Okay, all right, So how do people learn more about
you and your workshops and consultation, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
They can go on my website, Embodied Resilience dot io
and they can check me out there. They can also
go on the SEI website Trauma Healing dot org.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Okay, and I have a by there and ways to
get in touch with me.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
If they want to be on my mailing list, they
can go through my website to do that, okay. They
can also watch a YouTube video a YouTube thing that's
on there. I did a workshop on grief uncollective grief,
so they can get to know me a little bit
through that.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Okay, all right, we'll have those linked up here at
the show notes page at the Trauma Theaprispodcast dot com.
Once again, today's r L is Embodied Resilience dot Io Today. Amazing.
You are so inspiring. Jesus. Love to have you back,
have to have you back at later day, love to
(29:42):
come back. Awesome, awesome, we'll do it to share you
do and you're just You're just a wonderful sharer of
your experience. I love it. Thank you so much. We'll
be in touch.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Thank you so much to speak with you.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Appreciate it. By bye, right my fa
Welcome to the Trauma THEAPIS podcast. My name is Gamcpherson.
I interview incredible people who dedicated their lives to helping
those who have been impacted by trauma. Here we go,
So five, four, three, two and one are folks. Welcome
back to the podcast. Very excited to have as my
guest today, Doctor Shauday Lenin Shauday welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Thank you so much. It's so good to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Awesome So. Doctor Shaday is a dedicated psychologist with over
two decades of experience who specializes in training fellow professionals
and somatic experiencing. Her mission is to empower practitioners to
work effectively with those who've experienced complex trauma. She was
born and raised in Iran. At the age of thirteen,
she and her family, spanning three generations of women and girls,
(00:46):
left Iran after the revolution and settled in the UK. Later,
they immigrated to the US, where Shoulday completed her education.
This significant chapter in her life is instilled in her
profound understanding and passion for those who yearned to belong
but struggle due to the weight of trauma. Should they welcome? So,
(01:09):
before we get going here, share with the listeners where
you're from originally we heard that obviously, but where you
are currently?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I am currently in Maryland.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
After having lived in New York for close to forty years. Wow,
back to Maryland where I actually landed from England.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
When we first moved here.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, I was in New York for thirty six years. Close.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, okay, wow, so very intense little snippet of your bio.
But give us more and share with us how this.
I mean, we can imagine how things unfolded for you,
but tell us how did this interest begin for you?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I have an early memory when I was five years old.
My parents divorced at that time and when and at
that time, they weren't talking to each other. So whenever
my father and I lived with my mother would come
to pick us up, they wouldn't talk. They would just
say hello, hello, and my dad would take me and
(02:17):
my sister out for our time.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
And so one day my dad came in.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
And I remember looking up at both of them and saying,
why don't you two sit down and talk.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
To each other?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
How old we do? How old were you five?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I was five, And so a psychologist was born, and.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Then you know, things evolved.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I obviously I lived there, and then at thirteen, with the.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Revolution, we.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
My grandmother, mother, my sister, and I basically migrated to
the UK. Thankfully my mother had connections there, she had work,
and so, you know, things were already brewing about what
it is to be a person in the world from
(03:16):
my early childhood, what it is to belong, what it
is to feel not belonging. And at thirteen everything turned
on its head where we moved to a culture that
was so deeply different than my own, and even though
I was pretty westernized, it was a shock shock to
(03:37):
my thirteen year old, hormonally imbalanced, you know system, and
so I went in, you know, I really turned in.
Had already been very internal kid, and so I turned
in even more and basically just became a really good student,
and everything else got truncated. Social life, dating life, there
(03:57):
was no room for any of that. So he became
very introspective and very sort of Then when we moved
to this country, as all Iranians who have some privilege,
you either become an engineer, a medical doctor, or a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
So like, I'm going to go to medical school.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
So in college I was a microbiology student, but something
in me. Knew that I needed some help, and so
at eighteen I went to.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Therapy on my own.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
My first therapist, Doug Favero, I want to name him.
At eighteen, I went to him and he really helped
to save me. And he gave me a book by
Ervin Yaalam, Existential Psychotherapy. And I was twenty and it
was a tome and I couldn't put that book down
(04:54):
because it spoke to me on a deep level. It's like, oh,
that's me. What is it to be a human being?
What is it to be in pain? What is it
to not know myself? And so I stayed a medical
I stayed a microbiology major, but switched all my classes
to psychology when I was twenty one and applied to
(05:16):
graduate school and went to Adelphi in New York to
become a psychologist, got my PhD. But still I was
a seeker, right, Something wasn't hitting home and it was
good therapist all of this. So then I found zen
Buddhist practice. I don't know if it says that in
my bio or not. So I went to a monastery.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Okay, wait, how hung right here? This is getting so good?
I mean, you had me at that story when you
were like, Okay, why don't you guys sit down and
talk to each other? That was That's an amazing story.
It is, I mean, what an incredible memory. At eighteen,
(06:06):
you said you went to see Dan Favarro, Dougg Doug Favro.
What was going on for you such that you reached out.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I went to a college counselor at the time who
asked me, do you think your mother loved you? And
I remember that moment. I remember exactly where I was sitting,
what the walls looked like. I was eighteen, and I
(06:39):
couldn't answer that question, and I literally stopped in my tracks.
But I didn't know why. I didn't know why I
had been so moved. And then she referred me to
dog because it was only six sessions with.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Her or something.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
That question really made me curious. But more than it,
it created turbulence in my body. And I didn't know
all that my cat's coming in now. I didn't know.
All I knew was that I needed to find the
answer to that question.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
That's a pretty intense question. I know, that's a pretty
heavy question. Yes, So were you were you when you
went to uh that initial college counselor where you what
was distressing for you? Were you? It was just to
(07:42):
know something was going on for you.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Something was going on that I still you know, I
can put words to it now.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Then I think I was lost and dissociated, and you know,
if somebody looked at me, I would start crying. So
everything was just below the surface, but no words. I
think I hated myself. I mean when I look back,
(08:12):
I really had no sense of myself as a person
who was entitled to be alive, who had a right
to herself, who had a sense of agency. And these
are again my words now, But back then I was dissociated.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
But something in.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Me knew that this is the beauty of trauma is
that to every trauma there is a counter there is
a resilient core, and that was operating in me without
knowing it.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Wow, it's sort of And that's.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
What I love about teaching and working with clients is
no matter the depth of trauma, and there was a
lot for me, there is what we call counter vortex
from an somatic experiencing perspective, is that point of light,
that moment of resilience. And it happened to be that
moment of I don't know how to answer this question.
(09:14):
Did your mother love you? I didn't know the answer.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
That's odd.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So you have that experience with Doug at some point,
at a later point, you switch all of your classes
your focus to psychology. Let's jump there. You're in that program.
You're studying what is resonating with you? How is that?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
I love?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
For all you know, being a good learning is like
was my hunger and one really needing to place myself
somewhere psychologically, finding myself some where in the words of
Freud at the time, or in the words of Wynnicott,
I studied psychoanalytic psychology, in the words of the relational people,
(10:10):
about how trauma often has to do with a breach
in relationship with a with a break in relation to
ourself and to others.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And so I could I could find that, and that.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Was I was on fire with that. It's like, oh,
this is really exciting. And I got into I was
with another therapist at the time who was you know,
I still see once in a while, who was tremendously
helpful in helping me through that through the graduate program, repair.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
The relational wounds in me.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
So so between reading about it and doing my personal work.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
It was a really rich time and yet so that's
what was exciting.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
I could go on about what you know, the yet
all the yets in that, but so I loved it.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I was gobbling it up.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
I was reading, I was writing, I was getting seeing clients.
By then, I was learning, and it was just you know, food.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
And where were you at this living at this time?
Is this in New York?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
This is New York, This is Long Island and New York.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
And I went straight from college, so I started grad
school at twenty two.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
It's very young, yeah, and just you know, really excited about.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Being a therapist and about telling people to sit down
and talk to each other, right, and to talk to me,
and to be able to express rather than.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Suppress.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
How when you started doing that and having experience of
working with clients or patients, whatever terminology you want to use,
what was that like for you, and especially what was
it like for you to engage with someone's traumatic experiences.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
It was horrible.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
I mean I was you know, I was young, so
my brain was bigger than my capacity at the time,
you know, my intellect was bigger. So it took some
time to really you know, season myself in that. But
it was also exciting because I had tools that I
could offer people that had less access to these tools
(12:44):
than even myself, right, And it was really exciting to
put a person in a framework, Oh, this is their suffering,
and at the time it was well, they're depressed, or
they're you know, going into rages.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Or whatever it was.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
You know, so it actually made sense of what to
me in my childhood had felt like chaos. I was
able to put in order for my clients and therefore.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
For myself, right.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
So so in that sense it was really exciting. I
had a long way to go to embody that for
myself as a human, as a clinician, as a trauma therapist,
but so that was really exciting. It was like, oh,
I get to put this person in a frame that
(13:35):
makes sense for them and from chaos to sense, that
to me was sanity.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
You can name things, you can express.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Things, right. You talked about at an earlier time being
very shy. You know, someone looked at you you should cry.
Contrast that with your presence when you began working with clients.
To what degree were you able to engage with them
(14:09):
on a kind of a human level. Were you able
to do.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
That and not completely? I think I always had.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
A soft, gentle approach to people that really helped them
feel seen and that was always there. So that was
my superpower and I did that. In terms of being
embodied and fully engaged, I wasn't able. It took somebody
experiencing and spiritual practice actually for me to fully come
(14:42):
into my body as a whole organism that I can
then use as.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
A tool in helping heal people.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
So back then it was my empathy, my intellectual understanding,
my warmth, and sort of the gentleness that a lot
of people we're missing in their life, just somebody who
brings that gentle presence.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
They were missing that. So that was the bone marrow.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
That I had, and I built on that over time,
but mostly through my own personal work, not so much
about reading theory and all this.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Right, talk a little bit about your Zen practice in
how why Zen and how that informed and inspire the
work you do.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Yeah, so you know it really shaped me. I lived
in a monastery for ten years.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Wow, in my thirties.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Where was this?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
It was at Zen Mountain Monastery in Mount trent Burg,
New York. And I went in there I think when
I look back, I went in there because I didn't
want to be in this world. It was just too
painful to be in this world at the age of
thirty four, and so I went in there to meditate
(16:02):
and to see what it what it's like to live
in community, which turned out to have its challenges.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
The way that it shaped me, however, was being able
to sit with.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
The intolerable, whether it was intolerable terror, it for me
it was anxiety and panic, the intolerable of being in
my body and to pause with it m hm, you know,
(16:40):
really was uh mm. It shaped me in terms of
and in terms of how it can be with people
with that solid presence.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
It had its drawbacks.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
There are challenges when there's trauma and you go meditate,
your body can go into a freeze, and mind certainly
did that so after so, but that sense of that
there's a fierceness to zen practice where you sit.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
And you don't move and you you are with it
right and.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Despite its drawbacks for a traumatized nervous system, it gave
me the fierceness to face my own my own pain.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
To do that from my outside perspective feels like a
very courageous move. I mean, you don't describe yourself as
someone who's like bring it on person, and yet the
Zen was really almost forcing you to do that.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
It almost felt like subconsciously you wanted that, you.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Needed that, yes, or or I needed to I needed
that because there is a part of me that's like
bring it, come on, all right, but it was so
suppressed and so it kind of came out through my
Zen practice.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, oh, panic, come on, come get me.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
And I remember one moment when I was sitting there
terrified of a panic attack in my meditation, and I said, all.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Right, we're gonna do this, We're gonna do this. Yeah,
well ten years, ten years that was there, Jesus I did.
I did a week was it a weekend at the
Zen Center in San Francisco many years ago, and I
(18:45):
was like, okay, all right, so let's talk about First
of all, let me let me reintroduce you speaking with
should they doctor? Should they Lenin? What was your introduction
to somatic experiencing.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah, Actually, at the monastery where I lived, there was
a number of therapists who would practice there, and a
couple of them had been taking the training and when
I left the monastery when I realized that I am
better in the world. I am better in the world
I need to be. You know, a couple of.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
My friends were going to take the training and they said,
come on, let's take it. Let's take it.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
I lived in New York at the time. I said,
all right, I didn't want to be left out. Basically,
I had FOMO. So the three of us took the
sc training together what about twelve thirteen years ago now
and and it was a difficult training because that's where
(19:51):
I came face to face with what the freeze and
constriction my body had been locked in.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
So the first two years years of the training were
really difficult. And I the reason I continued were we're twofold.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
One is that my friends were there, but the other
one was there's something here for me to learn that
talk therapy hasn't taught me.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
And so I continued.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
And I and I in my advanced year, I did
a demo did they do these live demos with a
teacher Rajah who Raja seldom, who's a giant of se
And and that was transformative. That made me an se practitioner.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
And what what about that? What about that?
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Experience he worked with fear. So he had me, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
We're feeling fear was a live demo.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
It was a live demo front well, you know, eighty people,
my my student, my classmates, and he said, look at
he said, look at a supportive person in the crowd,
just to ground yourself. And my good friend was there
and I looked at her, and guess what happened. I
burst into tears because the notion of actually looking for support.
(21:14):
One of the things on trauma that gets severed is
our ability to reach for support because there was none
when the trauma happened, or the very people whose job
it was to protect us were the very people who
hurt us, so the support was damager. And then so
(21:34):
we went there and then fear started to rise up
in my chest.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
It was a lot of shaking in my chest.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
He said, put your arms out, and I put my
arms out and my hands began to shake and my
job began to shake, and I'm like, okay, he said,
just let that happen, and he looked at me. He said,
that's fear.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
And it's like the penny dropped. It's like, oh, there's fear. Oh,
that's what fear. Is and guess what I can be
with it?
Speaker 3 (22:12):
So my whole relationship with that terror really, which was
what it was shifted to, there's terror and there's me.
There's me in my spine. He worked with my legs
a lot, and it was like, oh, this is powerful.
You know when I can when I could feel something
(22:34):
intolerable in my body and feel its reverberations and not
fight it, but also have my spine and my legs
with me, you know. And that's what a se we
call the healing vortex, which is how do you be
with something that feels intolerable but keep your seat, be
(22:57):
in your spine, be in your legs, and be with
that experience. Because the world isn't a place where we
where we're not activated. We're going to be activated. There's
going to be fear. So how do we So anyway I.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Could go on, Wow, what a what a great uh
experience and just love the way you articulate your experiences.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
So how talk to us about how things unfolded for
you such that you became a trainer. You got into it,
I got into it.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
I'm like, okay, I said to Raja, I said, Rajia,
You're never going to be rid of me, because I'm
going to follow and learn from you everywhere you go.
He's like, okay. So I began to study with him,
I assisted him. I became an assistant in the sc trainings. Wow,
(23:50):
an assistant you know, teacher, and I did that for
a few years and one of my one of the teachers.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
There, came to me and said, what do you want.
I don't know why she asked that. It came out
of the seemingly out and I told her I want
to teach, and she really it was.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
A beautiful example of a woman lifting up another woman,
which is also very repetitive for me. M So she
really helped me to become faculty and she mentored me,
and I'm so grateful for her because teaching is where
(24:35):
I actually feel most myself or the best version of myself,
right and and so you know, and you know, se
is about becoming the fullest version of who we are
in the body, in an embodied way, and you know,
(24:57):
and I feel like that's sort of the culmination of
the work that I've done, is being able to offer
that to people with as much of me as possible.
I don't know if that makes sense, but So there's
a lot of me and the teachings of SS, a
lot of stories, a lot of sharing what's happening in
(25:19):
my own body with my students to normalize.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
There's a lot of.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Shame and trauma mm hmm, you know, and so we
de shame it by talking about, oh, this happened to
me too, and here's how my body reacted. And I
love that too, And then I see my students slide up.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Me too. That's an incredible sharing there, talking about the shame,
naming the shame first of all, and then being able
to share that with others. How did you get to
that point where you're able to do that.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
A lot of fear.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
I used to stand at my Gooddest altar before every lesson,
before every module and basically invoked my spine and my courage.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
And then at one point I think, I so so
a lot of sc works. So really feeling my.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Feet, I mean, it's simple in some ways when I'm teaching,
feel your feet, feel that they're shaking in my chest and.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
The ground at the same time.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
And I began to do that, and I began to
share that with my class. So you know, I'm pretty nervous, right,
now let me tell you what's happening for me. My
chest is shaky, my throat is a little tight. Oh,
let me check. Oh, I feel my button the chair though,
and I can wiggle my toes.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
And this is what we learn in SE. So I
began to in some way.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Share my experience and that made it more tolerable.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
It's like, oh, I'm.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Vulnerable too, and I find vulnerability is the best form
of protection.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Wow. Yeah, amazing, amazing. I love it. I love talking
to you. So as you kind of wind.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Down editing some of this, I could go on, Oh no, no.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
No, not editing anything. As we kind of wind down
here she day, So what do you do now? Talk
to us about your practice now, your teachings now?
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Yeah, yeah, So I still see private clients. Okay, I've
cut back quite a bit. I teach everywhere. I teach
in the US, Canada, Europe, I teach see. I do
consultations with students and SE practitioners, and so that's the
(28:06):
bulk of what my work life is, okay now, and
I'm moving more towards consultations. I'm you know, I'm doing workshops.
I recently did a workshop on the fund response or
the people pleasing response, and so I'm going to do
that in the US in a few months. So more
(28:27):
offering myself to groups to teach is sort of where
I feel like I want to go. I'm going, okay,
cutting back on clinical practice a little bit, but not completely.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Okay, all right, So how do people learn more about
you and your workshops and consultation, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
They can go on my website, Embodied Resilience dot io
and they can check me out there. They can also
go on the SEI website Trauma Healing dot org.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Okay, and I have a by there and ways to
get in touch with me.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
If they want to be on my mailing list, they
can go through my website to do that, okay. They
can also watch a YouTube video a YouTube thing that's
on there. I did a workshop on grief uncollective grief,
so they can get to know me a little bit
through that.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Okay, all right, we'll have those linked up here at
the show notes page at the Trauma Theaprispodcast dot com.
Once again, today's r L is Embodied Resilience dot Io Today. Amazing.
You are so inspiring. Jesus. Love to have you back,
have to have you back at later day, love to
(29:42):
come back. Awesome, awesome, we'll do it to share you
do and you're just You're just a wonderful sharer of
your experience. I love it. Thank you so much. We'll
be in touch.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Thank you so much to speak with you.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Appreciate it. By bye, right my fa
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